nates. Some pronounce it a mere jargon, others say it is gibberish. We can by no means agree with the first, as the only ground for the assertion is, barely, that they do not know any other language correspondent to that of the gipsies. But they do not seem to have considered how extravagant a surmise it is to believe a whole language an invention, that too, of people, rude, uncivilized and hundreds of miles distant from each other. This opinion is too extravagant to employ more time to controvert it. The gipsey language cannot be admitted for gibberish neither, unless by those who know nothing of the former, or are totally ignorant of the latter, which is corrupt German; whereas the former has neither German words, inflexions, nor the least affinity in sound.

It is now, we believe, pretty generally agreed that the gipsies came originally from Hindostan; since their language so far coincides with the Hindostanic, that even now, after a lapse of nearly four centuries, during which they have been dispersed in various foreign countries, nearly one half of their words are precisely those of Hindostan ;* and scarcely any variation is to be found in vocabularies procured from the gipsies in Turkey, Hungary, Germany, and those in England. Their manners, for the most part, coincide,

.*

*Grellman's opinion seems extremely plausible, that they are of the lowest class of Indians, called Suders, and that they left India when Timur Bag ravaged the country in 1408 and 1409, putting to death immense numbers of all ranks of people.

t Mr. Marsden first made inquiries among the English gipsies concerning their language— Vide Archæologia, vol. ii. pp. 382-386. Mr. Coxe communicated a vocabulary of words used by those of Hungary, see the same volume of the Archæologia, p. 387. Any person who may wish to be convinced of the similarity of language, and being possessed of a vocabulary of words used in Hindostan, may be satisfied of its truth by conversing with the first gipsey he meets.

as well as the language, in every quarter of the globe where they are found: being the same idle, wandering set of beings, and seldom professing any mode of acquiring a livelihood except that of fortune telling.

The gipsies have no writing peculiar to them in which to express their language. Writing or reading are in general very uncommon accomplishments with any of them, nor must they be at all expected among the wandering sort. Sciences and the refined arts are not even to be thought of among people whose manner of living and education are so rough. Twiss does, indeed, mention that the Spanish gipsies have some knowledge of medicine and surgery; but woe betide the person who confides in their skill. Music is the only science in which the gipsies participate in any considerable degree; they compose likewise, but it is after the manner of the eastern people, extempore.

The following sketch of an aboriginal gipsey presents a faithful picture of one of these wandering hordes at the time to which it refers; it is taken from the popular novel Quentin Durward; * the prelude to which is as follows:

Orleans, who could not love the match provided for him by the king, could love Isabella, and follows her escort. Quentin, however, unhorses him, and sustains a noble combat with his companion, the renowned Dunois, till a body of the archers ride. up to his relief. The assailants are carried off prisoners, and our victorious Scot pursues his dangerous way, under uncertain guidance, as the following extract will shew:

* Quentin Durward. Passim.

'While he hesitated whether it would be better to send back one of his followers, he heard the blast of a horn, and looking in the direction from whence the sound came, beheld a horseman riding very fast towards them. The low size, and wild, shaggy, untrained state of the animal, reminded Quentin of the mountain breed of horses in his own country; but this was much more finely limbed, and, with the same appearance of hardness, was more rapid in its movements. The head, particularly, which in the Scottish poney is often limpid and heavy, was small and well placed in the neck of this animal, with their jaws, full sparkling eyes, and expanded nostrils.

The rider was even more singular in his appearance than the horse which he rode, though that was extremely unlike the horses of France. Although he managed his palfrey with great dexterity, he sat with his feet in broad stirrups, sometimes resembling a shovel, so short that his knees were well nigh as high as the pommel of his saddle. His dress was a red turban of small size, in which he wore a sullied plume, secured by a clasp of silver; his tunic, which was shaped like those of the Estradiots, a sort of troop whom the Venetians at that time levied in the provinces, on the eastern side of their gulph, was green in color, and tawdrily laced with gold; he wore very wide drawers or trowsers of white, though none of the cleanest, which gathered beneath the knee, and his swarthy legs were quite bare, unless for the complicated laces which bound a pair of sandals on his feet; he had no spurs, the edge of his large stirrups being so sharp as to serve to goad the horse in a very severe manner. In a crimson sash, this singular horseman wore a dagger on the right side, and on the left a short crooked Moorish sword, and by a tarnished baldrick over the shoulder hung the horn which announced his approach. He had a swarthy and sun-burnt visage, with a thin beard and piercing dark eyes, a well-formed mouth and nose, and other features which might have been pronounced handsome, but for the black elf locks which hung around his face, and the air of wildness and emaciation which rather seened to indicate a savage, more than a civilized man.

'Quentin rode up to the Bohemian, and said to him, as he suddenly assumed his proper position on his horse," Methinks, friend, you will prove but a blind guide, if you look at the tail of your horse rather than his ears.'

And if I were actually blind,' answered the Bohemian, 'I could guide you through any country in this realm of France, or in those adjoining to it."

"Yet you are no Frenchman born," said the Scot. ""I am not," answered the guide.

"What countryman, then, are you?" demanded Quentin. "I am of no country," answered the guide.

""How, of no country?" repeated the Scot.

"No! " answered the Bohemian, "of none. I am a Zingaro, a Bohemian, an Egyptian, or whatever the Europeans, in their different languages, may choose to call* our people; but I have no country.

""Are you a Christian?" asked the Scotsman.

'The Bohemian shook his head.

""Dog," said Quentin (for there was little toleration in the spirit of Catholicism in those days) "dost thou worship Mahoun ?

6.66 'No," was the indifferent and concise answer of the guide, who neither seemed offended nor surprised at the young man's violence of manner.

"Are you a Pagan, then, or what are you?'
"I have no religion," answered the Bohemian.

'Durward started back; for though he had heard of Saracens and Idolaters, it had never entered into his ideas or belief, that any body of men could exist who practised no mode of worship whatsoever. He recovered from his astonishment, to ask where his guide usually dwelt.

Wherever I chance to be for the time," replied the Bohemian; "I have no home."

"How do you guard your property?

""Excepting the clothes which I wear, and the horse which I ride on, I have no property."

"Yet you dress gaily and ride gallantly," said Durward; "what are your means of subsistence?"

"" I eat when I am hungry, drink when I am thirsty, and have no other means of subsistence than chance throws in my way," replied the vagabond.

ure.

Under whose laws do you live?"

"I acknowledge obedience to none but as it suits my pleas"said the Bohemian.

"Who is your leader, and who commands you ?

"The father of our tribe-if I chose to obey him," said the guide," otherwise I have no commander."

"You are, then," said the wandering querist, "destitute of all that other men are combined by; you have no law, no leader, no suited means of subsistence, no house, no home. You

*In most parts of the Continent the gipsies are called cingari or Zingari; the Spaniard calls them Gittemos; the French, Bohemians; the German, Zigeuna; the Latins, Egyptii: others, Saracens and Tartars.

have, may heaven compassionate you, no country—and may heaven enlighten and forgive you, you have no God! What is it that remains to you, deprived of government, domestic happiness and religion?"

"I have liberty," said the Bohemian; "I crouch to no one -obey no one-respect no one. I go where I will-live as 1 can-and die when my day comes.'

"But you are subject to instant execution, at the pleasure of the judge.'

"Be it so," returned the Bohemian; "I can but die so much sooner."

"And to imprisonment also," said the Scot; "and where then is your boasted freedom?"

"In my thoughts," said the Bohemian, "which no chains can bind while yours, even when your limbs are free, remain fettered by your laws and your superstitions, your dreams of local attachment, and your fantastic visions of civil policy. Such as I, are free in spirit when our limbs are chained-you are imprisoned in mind, even when your limbs are most at freedom.

""Yet the freedom of your thoughts," said the Scot," relieves not the pressure of the gyves on your limbs."

"For a brief time that may be endured; and if within that period I cannot extricate myself, and fail of relief from my comrades, I can always die, and death is the most perfect of all freedom."

'Here was a deep pause of some duration, which Quentin at length broke, by resuming his queries.

"Your's is a wandering race, unknown to the nations of Europe-whence do they derive their origin?"

"I may not tell you," answered the Bohemian.

"When will they relieve this kingdom from their presence, and return to the land from whence they came? Scot.

said the

"When the day of their pilgrimage shall be accomplished," replied his vagrant guide.

"Are you not sprung from those tribes of Israel which were carried into captivity beyond the great river Euphrates?" said Quentin, who had not forgotten the lore which had been taught him at Aberbrothock.

"Had we been so," returned the Bohemian, "we had followed their faith, and practised their rites."

"What is thine own name?" said Durward.

"My proper name is only known to my brethren; the men beyond our tents call me Hayraddin Maugrabin, that is, Hayraddin the African man